Last Tuesday, a few hours before President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union Address at the Capitol, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, held a video conference with congressmen and senators specialized in National Security, known as The Gang of 8. On Friday, before the attack, he called each one of them again and managed to speak with seven of them to inform them.
The main topic then was obviously Iran, and the feeling among the legislators, at the end, was that the attack was imminent and probably unstoppable. The Democrats, especially alarmed, insisted that the situation was "very serious" and "grave," but not even they demanded as they had in previous occasions that the president seek explicit permission from Congress before starting a war. They did not lament, as happened last June, the lack of respect for the power of the parliament. And they did not even react too strongly to the lack of information. They urged the president to explain to the public what was happening, with the largest military deployment in two decades in the Middle East. But when that did not happen, nothing happened either.
Trump spoke about Iran and the threat that the regime of the ayatollahs poses to his country in the State of the Union Address, in the style of George W. Bush in 2003 in the same setting days before attacking Iraq, but did not explain why he was accumulating ships, fighters, and aircraft carriers in the region for an attack that only senators like the Republican Lindsey Graham or the former National Security Advisor (now a Trump enemy) John Bolton were requesting or demanding in the US, hawks from the old guard. Instead of presenting evidence or reasons to explain why an operation like Epic Fury is necessary now, why it was essential, Trump has been resurrecting and repeating the arguments that were not enough for his predecessors for an open conflict: the general threat to Americans, the regime's history of brutal repression, and its support for terrorist groups in the region.
Unlike other wars, this time, the White House has not bothered to gradually build a grand narrative. No weapons of mass destruction, no existential threat to Israel, no instability in Iraq, Syria, or Hezbollah's Lebanon. Trump vaguely talked about peace negotiations, negotiations for a major nuclear deal, about how he will never allow Tehran to have atomic bombs. He criticized the legacy of the "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" But without the need to go into many details.
Only in the last few days, when the attack was already decided, the pieces in place, and even the chosen date, the White House has started to accumulate arguments, but without much emphasis, also aware that within the Trumpism and the MAGA movement, this generates enormous rejection and tensions, as it is seen as a denial of everything promised for a decade by Trump and an operation instigated by Netanyahu, for the interests of another country.
For example, the Administration has started to say at the last moment that Iran had restarted its nuclear program from scratch. That it was "a week away" from having enough material to build a bomb, as negotiator Steve Witkoff unexpectedly stated on television, echoing what Netanyahu has been warning about for 20 years. Or above all, as Trump said in the speech, that they already had long-range missiles capable, shortly, of reaching the United States. Unproven claims that clash with what US intelligence services believe. Marco Rubio himself, on Wednesday, said that Tehran would have those missiles "someday," but did not state that it would be "soon," as the president did.
In his eight-minute video after the attack, Trump said: "We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It's a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon" His words were not much different from those of Barack Obama in July 2015, when, explaining the details of the Nuclear Agreement signed with Tehran, he stated: "There were really only two alternatives: either the issue of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon was resolved diplomatically, or by force, through war. Those are the options."
The big difference is that Obama never ordered an attack and Trump did. And his message today seems oblivious to the contradiction of his exultant messages in June when he announced that the entire Iranian program had been "completely destroyed," delaying any possible development by decades at least. And when he lashed out at anyone who said that the bombings had not eliminated the entire program, or at least there was no absolute certainty, as the Intelligence and Army reports themselves stated.
Trump's reasons are more pragmatic. For almost five decades, Iran has been the biggest underlying enemy, the largest, the most feared, the most powerful. In June of last year, after the 12-day War with Israel, the feeling in the White House was that maybe they were not as formidable as thought. That Iran was much weaker than believed and did not have the ability to defend itself or to attack, beyond a few hundred medium-range missiles with limited damage. So the president, also emboldened by the success of that operation and the one in Venezuela, saw a unique opportunity to definitively defeat a strategic adversary, also counting on a naval force that can simultaneously defend Israel. And with the collaboration of allies to curb retaliations, as seen in 2024 when Tehran sent thousands of drones towards Tel Aviv.
"The claim that Iran was about to build a nuclear weapon has not been proven. It is even more strange as a justification for war, given that this Administration has already claimed on several occasions to have destroyed the Iranian nuclear weapons program," wrote historian Timothy Snyder this Saturday. "The second argument of US propaganda is that the regime must change. This is also very strange, as opposition to regime change wars was supposed to be a fundamental principle of MAGA (...) These facts suggest two interpretative frameworks: an external war as a mechanism to destroy internal democracy; and an external war as an element of personal corruption of the President of the United States. From the US perspective, the most plausible view is internal politics, not foreign policy. Wars are a tool to undermine and destroy democracies. Given the multiple examples that exist, both in modern and ancient democracy, and given the behavior of Trump and his allies in general, this must be an interpretative method for these attacks," he adds in a brief essay Snyder.
A report from the Defense Intelligence Agency last year, cited by The New York Times, concluded that Iran does not have ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, and it could take up to a decade to develop up to 60 intercontinental ballistic missiles. "Even to reach that number of missiles in that timeframe, the intelligence agency concluded that Iran would have to make a determined effort to develop that technology."
Similarly, estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency are that the vast majority of the nearly 450 kilograms of Iranian uranium enriched to 60% are buried in Isfahan after the attacks in June. There is no doubt that the Iranians would be trying to reach those underground containers where the uranium is stored, but there is also no evidence that they have succeeded or are close.
Defense of protesters and regime change
The latest angle for justifying the attack is the repression of protests in Iran. When these gained strength in mid-January, Trump posted a message on his social media urging the population to take to the streets and threatening Iranian leaders. "They will pay a high price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY" declared Trump on his social media, hinting at a possible intervention in the country. The Republican leader encouraged Iranians to continue protesting and to "take" control of the country's institutions.
Since then, he has mentioned several times the brutal repression, the death of thousands of civilians, the savage tactics of the Revolutionary Guard, and the ayatollahs' Intelligence and repression services. However, he has not made it the center of his speech. Neither has he focused on the option of a regime change, on which he has been ambiguous. Sometimes advocating for it, sometimes saying maybe not, as he did just yesterday.
In his message to the population, he urged them again, as in January, to prepare for an opportunity that may not be repeated in generations to take control of the Government and their country. And in an interview with The Washington Post, in the early hours of Saturday, he stated that the freedom of the oppressed was one of the main objectives of the military operation. "I just want freedom for the people," he said when asked about his expected legacy. "I want a secure nation, and that's what we are going to have."